The Walls of Byzantium (45 page)

Luke flinched and found his fists clenched. Despite the clumsy provocation, his anger was rising.

‘My mother was Greek,’ went on Suleyman genially. ‘Did you know that? I’ve always vowed to myself that the sultans who follow me should also have Greek blood in their veins. And hers is the best.’

Luke found his voice. ‘She would never submit herself to you willingly.’

‘No?’ Suleyman arched a black eyebrow. His voice was a whisper. ‘Not even if
your
life depended on it?’ He came very close. ‘Tell me, Luke Magoris, you’re a merchant now, aren’t you? You like money, the money you will make from selling all that alum in Venice. How much more would you make if I went on stopping the Venetians from bringing in their alum from Trebizond yet let yours from Chios through?’ He paused and his smile was wafer thin. ‘That could be arranged … for a price.’

Luke moved fast. His hands were around the Prince’s neck almost before the sentence was out, dragging him to the floor of the tent. The two men hit the carpet with some force, Luke’s thumbs digging into Suleyman’s windpipe and the Turk’s hands gripping his arms, trying to relieve the pressure. They rolled over once, twice, before Suleyman managed to angle his head and sink his teeth into his attacker’s forearm. Luke loosened his grip as the pain hit him and it was enough for Suleyman to pull a dagger from his sleeve. But Luke had seen the move and rolled away, coming to rest within reach of the peregrine’s stand. As he grabbed its base, the bird tried to escape, shrieking as it reached the limit of its chain.

There was the sound of metal from across from the tent. Luke looked up. Suleyman’s guards had entered, swords drawn.

Suleyman yelled something and they stayed where they were. The peregrine, still chained, sprang at Luke, its claws splayed for attack. But Luke was beyond its reach and it screamed its rage as it pawed the air, the chain taut behind it.

Luke rose and looked around the tent. His sword was tantalisingly close. He glanced back at his enemy.

Suleyman had risen too and pulled another dagger from the belt and it was a long, vicious thing that might have gutted a leopard.

He lunged at Luke but met only air as Varangian training produced a sidestep of precision. Suleyman spun round, panting, the dagger thrust out before him.

‘Oh, let me kill you, Luke Magoris,’ hissed Suleyman. He was close enough for Luke to smell the wine on his breath. ‘Please give me an excuse to kill you. It would solve so many problems.’

There was a rustle behind him. Someone was standing between the guards.

‘
Prince Suleyman!
’

Suleyman sighed and lowered the dagger. ‘Ah, your other friend.’

‘You said he would not be harmed,’ said Zoe.

‘And he has not been. He attacked me as I was in the middle of discussing my plans for the Laskaris girl.’ He paused and tucked the dagger in his belt. He felt his neck and tested his head from side to side. ‘Does he know the penalty for assaulting the son of the Sultan?’

Zoe glanced at Luke and then, unexpectedly, knelt. ‘Lord, he is impulsive. He was always thus. He feels deeply for the Laskaris girl and doesn’t realise you mean her no harm.’

Suleyman was looking at Luke with malevolence. ‘He threatened my life. He must forfeit his own.’

Zoe prostrated herself on the carpet, her forehead deep in its weave. ‘Majesty!’ she whispered, her voice muffled. ‘He acted rashly and he will not do so again. I will take him into my household and guarantee that you need not set eyes on him again.’

Suleyman sat on the chair with one hand on his neck and stroked his beard, examining Luke with malice. The silence in the tent was broken only by the uneven breathing of the two men.

Then Suleyman said what he was meant to say. ‘Very well. He will be your groom. But I will look to you to guard him well.’

A short while afterwards Zoe and Luke were sitting in front of her tent on cushions, sipping cool sherbet in the mid-morning
heat and looking out over the Bosporus. The channel was alive with craft ferrying people and goods to the villages further down its shores or beyond into the Black Sea.

Luke looked at the palaces that lined both sides of the water, most set back with lush gardens that ran down to the water’s edge. They were abandoned now or occupied by Ottoman generals.

Zoe asked, ‘Suleyman offered to keep the Venetian alum from getting through?’

Luke nodded.

‘And in exchange?’

‘You can imagine. That’s why I attacked him.’

‘That was a mistake.’

‘You saved me. Thank you,’ Luke said. He watched a Turkish galley intercept a round ship from Genoa. Bales of something were being transferred to the lower vessel. ‘Why am I here?’ he asked.

‘You are here because of what you’ve been doing on Chios,’ replied Zoe. ‘Your success there has made you conspicuous. The Turks want the island for the Venetians. They give them Chios and get cannon in return, cannon big enough to bring down Constantinople’s walls.’

‘So why not simply kill me?’ asked Luke.

‘Because I persuaded him that you’d be more useful alive than dead,’ said Zoe. ‘But it’s precarious. You cannot afford to cross him again.’

‘But I will,’ said Luke. ‘I mean to take Anna.’

‘Then you’re a fool. If you try to take her from him, he will kill you. Both of you … I would not advise going anywhere near Anna. Let me be the go-between.’

‘You? Why should I trust you after what happened in Monemvasia?’

Zoe looked sharply at him. ‘Your friends must have told you of my part in Plethon’s visit, my part in saving their lives? Anna trusts me and so should you.’ She paused. ‘Anyway, what choice do you have?’

Luke rubbed his chin. He’d managed to shave and wash himself at last in Zoe’s tent and was enjoying the breeze on his face. He was wearing new clothes and his feet were in soft leather. He looked down at them and wondered again why Zoe wanted to help them.

‘I am already the go-between,’ continued Zoe. ‘And I know about the treasure.’

Luke looked up.

‘I know that Plethon wants you to find it. For the Empire.’

Luke stared at her. This was unfamiliar territory.

‘Has it occurred to you, Luke, that I might not entirely agree with my family’s plans to protect its wealth? After all, I’ve little incentive given that Damian will inherit it all.’

‘Your interest is power and money,’ said Luke. ‘It always has been.’

‘And you. My interest has been you.’

‘Only because I denied you.’

‘Am I that shallow?’ She smiled. ‘All right, let’s just talk about power and money. Why shouldn’t my interests now coincide with that of the Empire? It seems to me that I might gain more from a grateful emperor if I were to help you find the treasure than from Mamonas primogeniture.’

Luke considered this. He’d been prevented from going to Venice and the crusade. He was at the gates of Constantinople. If he could just get in …

‘There is a sword,’ he said at last.

‘Ah, the sword. Siward’s sword. Is it important?’

Luke ignored the question. ‘Suleyman has it.’

‘I know. He showed it to me.’

‘Can you get it for me?’

It was a week later that the siege was raised. The Crusader army was on the Danube and it was time for Bayezid to march against it.

It happened with the silent purpose that characterised all Ottoman military manoeuvres, so that when Luke rose one morning and came out of his tent to wash, only a handful of tents were still standing. One of them was Suleyman’s.

The Ottoman army, forty thousand strong, had already assembled in the Valley of the Springs and was awaiting the Sultan. It was strung out along the northern shore of the Golden Horn and its banners fluttered in a light wind from the sea, sunshine glancing off helmet and shield. The army would take the road west to Edirne before striking north to meet up with Prince Lazarević’s Serbs at Tarnovo in Bulgaria.

‘We should ride to the head of the valley,’ said Zoe, emerging from her tent. ‘Watching them march out is a spectacle. Get our horses.’

Luke walked to the paddock where their horses were tethered. Both had been saddled and he led them back to where his mistress stood, watching the Sultan and his retinue emerge from Prince Suleyman’s tent. Surely, thought Luke, the Prince was to join Bayezid on this campaign? But there he was, bowing deep to his father, without a scale of armour on his person. If he was going to war, it would not be today.

Soon he and Zoe were riding west along the northern ridge of the valley to where it ended above the mouth of the Horn. They came to a grassy defile through which the army would pass and where musicians had set out their drums and trumpets and bells to play their brothers to war. Black-skirted dervishes were there, practising the spins and whirls that would be their dance to the music, their dance to Allah. It was the dance that would remind the soldiers of their gazi roots and of the ferocity that flowed through them from the red earth of the Anatolian steppe.

Towards the east they could see a haze of dust greying the horizon and could hear the deep percussion of thousands of feet on the march. The distant beat of drum and crash of cymbals kept their horses’ ears alert and sent tiny tremors up their flanks.

Then Luke heard the sound of closer hoofbeats and looked up to see two riders approaching the opposite hill.

‘
Say nothing!
’ hissed Zoe.

Prince Suleyman had stopped his horse on the hill across from them. Beside him, Anna was dressed and veiled as an Ottoman consort and mounted on a pretty palfrey of white and pink. Her head was lowered and if she’d seen Luke, she didn’t show it. As they drew up, Suleyman turned to her and said something in her ear; Anna nodded and kept her head bowed. Then he walked his horse forward and looked directly across at Zoe and Luke.

‘How does your new groom do, lady?’ he called.

The musicians and dancers around them had prostrated themselves on the grass. A drum rolled gently down to the road at the bottom of the defile.

‘Get off your horse,’ whispered Zoe from the side of her mouth.

‘No,’ said Luke, quite loudly.

There was a short laugh from the other side. ‘He is insolent! No doubt you will beat him later?’

‘Undoubtedly, Majesty. But it is my fault. I have asked him to remain mounted since my horse is skittish this morning. The music, lord.’

‘Ah yes,’ said the Prince, ‘the music.’ He looked round at the discarded instruments.

The army was approaching beneath its cloud like a winding snake of many colours. The noise made Zoe’s horse start and Luke leant across and took her bridle.

Suleyman nodded and the musicians collected their instruments and began to tune them. The dervishes stood and bowed and swept the grass from their robes. Someone went to retrieve the drum.

‘You will see something unforgettable in a moment, Luke Magoris!’ he shouted. ‘You will see an unbeaten army on its way to win another battle. Mark it well and be thankful that you don’t have to face it.’

Luke was about to reply when Zoe’s hand gripped his arm like a vice.

‘He will mark it well, Majesty, and his
silence
,’ – the grip tightened – ‘will be proof of his astonishment.’

Across the other side of the defile, Anna walked her horse forward and undid her veil. For the first time she looked up and her eyes locked with those of Luke.

In the look that passed between them then was fear and joy and, above all, certainty. Whatever happened, whatever the lies, the forcing, the blackmail, there would be no other love in his life or hers. In that gaze was a longing, a longing grounded in something sublime that happened in a cave. Anna strained
to search every part of his face, to store the memory of it to be unpacked, if it had to be, every remaining night of her life. She lifted her hand as he lifted his and the world beyond them was, for that moment, somewhere else.

But the army was there.

First came the flags, yellow and red and covered in holy writing, borne on lances. Behind them rode the
aga
of the janissaries and his captains and companies of dervishes whirling in their wake. Then, marching in loose order, came the ranks of janissaries in their tall white hats and long red coats, stepping out with their swords slung low from their waists and their most precious regimental badge, the cauldron, held between the two biggest men of each company.